MidCountry
Continued from page 1
494 and Highway 169 in Bloomington in
early spring. The bank will lease 17,415
square feet in the headquarters at 7825
Washington Ave. S. It will vacate 11,200
square feet at its current headquarters in
the Woodhill Office Plaza at 14525 Highway
7 in Minnetonka.
“What we want to say with this [the
move into downtown Minneapolis] is that
we’re serious about business banking, and
we don’t want to be the best-kept
secret in local banking anymore,”
said Robin Roberts, senior vice president at MidCountry.
If the downtown launch succeeds
in bolstering MidCountry’s business
banking it won’t be because of a new
shingle hanging above the sidewalk,
said several other community
bankers who have been close to the
downtown market. Success will
depend on the bankers in the new
office, in the Investors Building at 733
Marquette Ave., and their knowledge
of the downtown market.
Edina-based Crown Bank made a
similar downtown Minneapolis move
in 2005 when the five-year-old bank
opened its second office. Crown
chose a high-profile corner at Sixth
and Marquette.
The investment made sense for
Crown, said Chief Executive Officer
Peter Dahl. He and his Minneapolis
office president, John Crinklaw, were
downtown market veterans from
their years with Bank Windsor, which had
offices in the IDS Center before being
acquired by Associated Bank in 1999.
For Dahl and Crinklaw opening downtown was a return to the old neighborhood.
“The market here was immeasurable for
us; there’s such a high concentration of
MidCountry Bank: At a glance
Assets
Loans-leases
Income
Source: FDIC (as of 9/30/2011)
$682.1M
$407.3M
$4.2M (year-to-date)
professionals,” Dahl said. “That was the
market we knew from our time at
Windsor.”
And the market responded to Dahl &
Co.’s arrival: Crown’s assets grew 77 percent, to $233 million, in the two years after
its downtown opening.
One of Crown’s chief competitors in
those days was Excel Bank, which also had
offices in Edina and downtown Minneapolis
“With so much of
banking being done
through remote
deposit capture or
other electronic
channels, it’s not that
important to have
a bricks and mortar
presence close by
your market now.”
— Jeff Hawkins, president, Anchor Bank
until it was acquired by M&I Bank in 2007.
Some of those bankers are back to compete again with Crown, this time with
MidCountry.
Steve Nichols, who has worked downtown since 1982 for U.S. Bank, Excel and
M&I, will manage the new MidCountry
office. His team includes Excel-M&I veterans Melody Rehder and Peggy Franzen,
both with more than 10 years of downtown
experience.
A downtown Minneapolis presence isn’t
a key part in every ambitious business
bank’s strategy, though.
Anchor Bank President Jeff Hawkins
said MidCountry’s new banking hires have
caught his attention. “They’ve been bringing on talented people,” he said.
But the $1.3 billion-asset Anchor isn’t
likely to follow MidCountry into downtown
Minneapolis soon.
“A significant part of our referral network and potential client base is in downtown Minneapolis, but we spend a lot of
time with them in their offices,” Hawkins
said. “With so much of banking being done
through remote deposit capture or
other electronic channels, it’s not
that important to have bricks and
mortar presence close by your market now.”
That increasing mobility of
bankers was one reason that St.
Paul-based Highland Bank closed
the downtown office it operated on
LaSalle Avenue for several years.
Downtown leases and parking
costs were higher, and those weren’t
necessary when bankers spent most
of their time out of the office,
Highland Bank Chief Executive
Officer Rick Wall said. “Good
bankers have always gone out to
their customers, and that’s even
more true now,” he said.
Bricks and mortar may be less
vital to banking customers today,
but Roberts at MidCountry expects
its prominent Marquette Avenue
presence will put the bank’s name on
the radar for more business owners.
The downtown marquee provided
a clear boost for Crown Bank when it
expanded its five-year-old franchise.
“We were a young, growing bank when
we moved downtown, and it aided our
name recognition a lot. Now when people
think about Crown they immediately think
of the Marquette office,” Dahl said.
Four business lenders will work at
MidCountry’s new business loan office,
along with a credit analyst and treasury
services specialist for business clients.
MidCountry operates one other business
loan office, two mortgage production
offices and 14 full-service branches.
The 2,667-square-foot street-level office
will also have access from the skyway.
Reprinted with permission of Finance & Commerce Inc. ©2011